Interview: No Ifs, No ButtsRugby League Professionals Association president Tony Butterfield on his battle to deliver a collective agreement for NRL players.

Unions: National FocusIn this month’s national wrap: Noel Hester meets a heavy hitter talking up open source unionism, truckies front the suits at Boral’s AGM, tales of corporate bastardry and Medicare birthday revelry.

Industrial: Fools GoldUnions have thrashed out a string of protocols with the NSW Labor Government. Some, now, are questioning whether they are worth the cheap, imported paper they are written on, reports Jim Marr.

History: The Gong ShowIn late September the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC) celebrated 75 unbroken years championing the rights of workers in the coastal Illawarra region 80 kilometres south of Sydney, writes Rowan Cahill.

Politics: The Hawke Legacy The election of the Hawke Labor government twenty years ago holds some salient lessons for today’s Labor Party, writes Troy Bramston.

International: Sick NationAs Australia celebrates 20 years of Medicare’s universal health coverage the crisis facing American workers in need of medical care is a useful reminder of what we’ve got – and what we stand, writes Andrew Casey.

Economics: Closed MindsPhilip Mendes looks at the political influence of right-wing think tanks, their financial backing and asks why the left hasn’t been able to get its ideas out there.

Review: Mixing Pop and PoliticsHe's had relations, with girls from many nations... but Billy Bragg seems to like us Aussies as much or even more than any of the others, writes Pádraig Collins.

Poetry: One Size Fits AllThere once was a man from the Lodge - Who tried hard, our poems, to dodge... Resident bard David Peetz is back!

C O L U M N S

PostcardNorth By NorthwestPhil Doyle returns from up north, where he survived on nothing but goodwill, good people and a great big orange bus.

The SoapboxThe $140 Million Patriot It would be hard to imagine a steeper slide from hero to zero than the experience of Richard Grasso, the now-deposed head of the New York Stock Exchange. writes Jim Stanford.

MediaBush's Bad News BluesThe Bush Administration is cooking up a new campaign 'to shine light on progress made in Iraq', writes Bill Berkowitz.

The Locker RoomA Tale Of One CityPhil Doyle gazes into the crystal ball for signs of life, and finds that somewhere the horses are running in the wrong direction.

CultureWith Banners FurledThere is no better account of the glory that was the annual Labour Day marches than that given by Kylie Tennant in Foveaux, her fictional account of life in inner Sydney in 1912, the year she was born.

PostcardThe Cancun Wash-Up The dramatic collapse of the World Trade Organisation Ministerial Meeting in Cancun, Mexico, last month has been followed by a deafening quiet from Geneva, Brussels and Washington, writes Peter Murphy.

E D I T O R I A L

The Monk Off Our BackIt should come as no surprise that Tony Abbott has been dragged from his workplace relations portfolio just as his $60 million assault on the CFMEU finally unravels.

One Size Fits All

There once was a man from the Lodge - Who tried hard, our poems, to dodge... Resident bard David Peetz is back!

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The Federal Government has threatened to withhold over $400 million in funding from Australia's cash-starved universities if they refuse to sign up to the Government's wish-list for what the university's enterprise bargains should contain -- including AWAs and no unions on campus. No matter that this runs totally counter to the Government's professed motivation for supporting enterprise bargaining ˆ that it should be up to the parties to decide what is good for them! We return to a poetic form commonly found on university toilet doors -- the limerick -- to express the Government's logic.

ONE SIZE FITS ALL
(by David Peetz)

The IRC's role now is dead;
"You must bargain" we've so often said,
That's how it must be,
So management's free
To do what we tell them instead.

We rage against "one size fits all"
Agreements that frankly appall!
We say "aim for the skies!
You can wear any size!
So long as you wear 'extra small'".

Awards were too complex, t'was wrong;
So we sing simplicity's song:
Just match our guidelines,
To avoid any fines --
Only eight hundred ten pages long

We won't see your tax dollars spent
On elites who just foster dissent:
Intellectuals and such,
They're so out of touch --
Oh, and pass me the truffles, dear gent.